Excellent, been looking to hearing more about the HTC One, and the SGS4 as well.Facebook Home might appeal to those whose lives revolve around Facebook and there friends who are online, but I just want quick access to all my apps and data. But it certainly is an interesting interface for what's basically a launcher or layer.Reply

The ending was hilarious too. Especially with Brian saying "Mommy, Can I get the First." I totally agree that Facebook is only good for like 10 to 12 months. I started hating facebook because whenever I would jokingly say something insulting or praising on a girl's post or message her something. Her boyfriend will come beat me up. And then I would have to plead for forgiveness for what was just a simple joke. Also sometimes I would have to hear to some people's sad stories and forcefully express regret. In fact I believe I made more enemies than friends on facebook. I suffered this way for 2 years and then I deleted everyone except close friends and relatives. Now I have like 35 people on my friend list. And I never open it because I talk to people on telephone.

P.S. Brain is 100% true that, "People who are happy are not on Facebook."Reply

Can you please address smartphone battery life? Who cares about 8.6mm thickness when the phone only lasts a few hours during actual use? The DROID RAZR MAXX set the standard with a massive 3300mAh battery in a 9mm thick phone. IMO that should be the bare minimum. Then 5050mAh in 11mm, and 6600mAh in 13mm.

There's no question a lot of people would be willing to sacrifice stuff like thinness and PPI for a larger battery. Here are some recent quotes from the comments sections of the recent HTC One article on Anandtech, and the GS4 and HTC One articles on Dailytech (all articles are dated Feb 19):

"I really hope they work on battery life...maybe this rant should be at the battery makers...damn energizer bunny."

"I think an S3 Maxx (thicker with larger battery) would be popular with a lot of people. It would have the potential to be their 2nd or 3rd most popular model. It makes sense to me. Everything else has gotten amazing and battery life has remained mostly the same."

"What I would want most is better battery life, minor improvements in video resolution, and better sound quality through the speakers. "

"I'm an extremely heavy user and my galaxy nexus can burn through its battery very quickly, its my main gripe with it. It is also one of the key features I will be looking for in my next phone. I don't need more processor speed, focus on giving me better battery life."

"need to see battery Tests."

"Well, I'm fine with 720p in a 4.7" screen but the battery is the key. If it's not at least a full day battery, then there's no point."

"That User Experience is horrible! Give me the option to double the battery size (Motorola got the idea with the MAX), I'm willing to take the size/weight consequences."

" Now, if they just improve the battery life we have a home run."

" All those updates to the tiles keep burning battery. As for the battery, it needs to be larger. Phones do not need to be so thin you can shave with them. The DO need to last all day (with all day use). I don't think this is "the" phone for me but I hope HTC uses some of these features in future phones (a max battery version would be nice)."

"All these sacrifices for silly 1080p marketing gimmick nobody will distinguish from normal distances. Maybe in one year or two, some OEM will say that PPI race is meaningless and they will give 2x battery life instead. Ironically, HTC did the same with this phone with their camera MP count."

"I'd rather have a larger battery, sane front buttons (HTC logo in the middle, whut?), microSD card, and definitely require inductive charging. I also have no interest in a 1080p screen on a phone. It's a phone. You do not need or want a 1080p screen. You may think you want it, but in reality it just adds a bunch of cost and battery drain, for a very pointless difference over 720p."

And my own comment:"Until smartphone battery life during ACTUAL usage at least DOUBLES (let's say 16 hours, to allow for human sleep/phone charging for the other 8 hours of the day), there will be LOTS room for improvement. I look forward to that day."

Superflex, if anybody is trolling, it is you. Flyingpants1 (great name btw) had some useful stuff to say and I largly agree with him. It is hard to imagine why vendors dont release a second phone with a larger battery. Especially the s3. Lost of room to stay easily usable and add loads of battery capacity. And it's not like Samsung is opposed to making lots of models of phones. Sadly, the RAZR Max is lacking is several ways and only on Verizon. Reply

This goes back to their discussion of removable battery (and microsd, about which Brian absolutely cracks me up). My brother actually does carry around two extra batteries for his GS3 and swaps them regularly during a day; I use a Nexus 4 and the battery has never died on me from a single day's use. For me, battery life has been good enough since the I9100 I got almost two years ago, so I'm pretty happy with where they are today. If you need more, there are plenty of options like USB battery packs, or for phones with user-replaceable batteries, extra or extended batteries. Especially with high-end Android phones (iPhone is another story imo), the phones are so big now that they absolutely have to be as thin as possible in order to be usable, so I personally don't want to sacrifice thickness for additional battery life in most cases.

I sort of feel that the ship has sailed here--most phones simply aren't going to sacrifice thinness for battery life, and I suspect that the vast majority of users are like me: able to get through a day on a single 8 Whr battery. People like you who need 7+ hours of screen on time in a single day will have to suffer additional battery packs, or a MAXX on VZW.Reply

Would like to hear more information about the actual hardware and platform of the Galaxy S 4, maybe its because you still don't have review samples in, but I didn't actually hear much evaluative content on the actual hardware of the phone. Yes Samsung likes to throw in a bunch of gimmicks, that are rarely actually used; and yes removable storage and batteries are debatable, but all these features are things samsung does on top of providing a core smartphone product. I'm interested in evaluation of the new 1080p screen, that appears to be using a new type of pentile arrangement, (and how noticable the 2 subpixel per pixel is at this density), also interested in the audio and camera quality. Yes the exynos Big Little architecture isn't actually out yet, but neither are the majority of things that are reviewed on this website. I don't think that is a reason to not discuss it. Brian deservedly is enamored with the HTC One and the design choices especially its camera, but that isn't a reason to not discuss and to dismiss the One's biggest competitor.Reply

I won't speak for Brian or Anand, but I think those things (and really any phone as a whole) can't really be evaluated to any level of sophistication when you don't actually have the device - and especially not to the level that you and I would expect from this site. If OEMs have problems with people just making phone calls at press events, I doubt Samsung would be pleased if Brian and Anand brought all their testing equipment to the launch event and just went to town on the demo units. Also, they've talked about the Big-Little architecture before, in past podcasts and articles. Without being able to run benchmarks on actual hardware, it's hard to give much of a substantive assessment.Reply

I've actually gotten into the habit of bringing almost everything I need to make measurements to events. Unfortunately most OEMs will tell you during the briefing - no benchmarks / measurements / anything. It's little more than like a better press release photo time unless you skirt the thing and do it in the demo room afterwards.

Just a question, but why did you guys not mention the fact that the HTC First is actually a stock Android experience once you turn off Facebook Home? To me, that's quite a significant development. $100 for a mid-range phone that's designed alright that runs stock 4.1.2 is unheard of in the market today. The hardware in the First is enough to run Jelly Bean without any issue, especially at 720p.

Wow. I feel a little foolish now. I listened to 1:36 and figured they were done talking about it. Disregard my comment.

In any case, I kind of want to mess around with a First just because it has the ability to run stock. All manufacturers should have that. I understand why they don't, but it would be nice to see, especially from someone who's struggling in the market. *cough*HTC*cough*Reply

I don't really see why people are so excited about this. Sure it has LTE compared to the N4, but it has 4.1 and will probably never see an update. If LTE is what matters, there are plenty of AOSP ROMs that are rock-solid for evita and d2att (One X and GS3 on ATT), which have essentially all the same boxes (720p, dual core krait, cheap on contract). Is the set of people who want stock android but won't flash aftermarket firmware really that large?

Not that I disagree in principle--if I had my druthers, every phone would be able to run manufacturer-supported stock Android. I just don't see why a nine-month-old version of Android is exciting at this point.Reply

4.2 isn't much of an update over 4.1, and I'm sure plenty of people will prefer stock 4.1 to say, Touchwizzed 4.2. As for custom ROMs on the HOX or GS3, many people don't want to flash custom ROMs. Also the AT&T HOX bootloader is a bit trickier to unlock than most. They're also not 4.3" phones.

Also, at least for me, I strongly prefer 4.1 (I updated my Nexus 7 to 4.2, hated it, and flashed back to 4.1). The two shades, the smaller dock icons, the really ugly lock screen, and the notification shade behavior wasn't worth the fairly minor additions that 4.2 offered. Reply

guys I love that you are passionate about the HTC One because I think this phone needs to sell to push the market forward... but you talk about it like its the only one with certain things. The Lumia 920 I believe is also in this category:

Great low light camera performance - 920 has itHigh quality high amplitude mics with no clipping - 920 has itOIS - 920 has it, and its even better in the 920 (your own review shows it)

The 920 has also other features that sets it apart:Clear Black display - very noticable outdoorsHigh sensitivity touch - you can use your fingernails... super awesome when playing FPS so you dont smudgeWireless charging - I love it, i'm using it at my desk right nowPureMotion (60 Hz refresh rate with low latency - really nice in windows phone since the UI is very fluidXbox music - I know this isn't specific to the 920 but I bought the phone because I can music stream for free and keep my library with me cloud sync'd and download for a monthly fee (I travel a lot)

Now... don't get me wrong. The HTC One X is better in some ways than the 920. The high sensitivity sensor means the videos are better, the shutter lag is less, the preview is better, its thinner, its lighter, its probably got a bigger battery, etc. And I'm super happy with your coverage of the HTC One, I eat it up.

But why is there no coverage of the innovations of the Lumia 920? No review at all. And often when you're discussing the HTC One you say its "the first phone that... <fill in blank>" and completly disregard that the Lumia 920 often beat it to the punch.

I switched to the 920 from my iPhone for the camera and the music.... and I've been delighted by the other cool features.. but it gets no coverage!Reply

I don't think anyone will debate that Nokia makes phenomenal hardware. Industrial design and "fit and finish" has always been one of their strengths. Heck, I was a long time 6230, 6300 and N95 user. Where Nokia lost me is their alignment with Windows Mobile. While it is my preference, I have to imagine I'm not alone.

This is the phone I've been waiting for and will likely be the catalyst for me to switch from my iPhone 5 back over to Android.Reply

For me, Facebook was interesting in 2004, and it was exclusive to college students, and to be honest, I only even bothered to sign up after being badgered into it by my friends. Once they opened it up to everyone, I just thought "this is why I never joined Friendster" and stopped using it.

Love the podcast and website and I am devout fan/follower of this information chain. However your discussion on the removable battery driving me nuts. Your not the only ones either ! As a person that carries both the EVO LTE and the Galaxy S3 on a daily basis I will have to share with you my experience. It is really pretty simple I can not use the HTC Evo 4g LTE and get through a day no matter what ! The main reason is because I listen to podcast all day at work and in my job I am moving around quite a bit getting tools and other things for what ever project I am working on. This means that I would have to have an external charger in my pocket with the wire running to my phone to keep it going ! Obviously this is a less than ideal situation and the reason I use my Galaxy S3 for this use case. It is because of this that I am torn between the nice features and beautiful build of the HTC One and the function of the Galaxy S4. I love the Super LCD Screens but the Super amoled is no slouch. The main thing that I favor in the Evo's screen the most is the brightness of it and I know that the Ones screen will also maintain this attribute. I suppose I could just keep using my S3 for the podcast but the device I use for this ends up being my most used device even for other smart phone tasks. Meaning that I would be using my old phone for my main phone and that does not make much sense I suppose. Guess i could get the One for it's camera attributes considering I do a lot of macro shots for work. I just wish HTC could make the phone last all day no matter what the usage scenario ! In the end I guess it is not bad problem to have and I wiould probably be happy either way. I just wanted to point out there are use cases where a removable battery is essential ! Reply

I totally agree with you... while external storage can be dismissed as being unreliable, and replaceable batteries being deemed unnecessary, at least Samsung is giving us a choice! Since when do we want to limit our choices?The argument they made in the podcast against external storage was that the medium was slow and unreliable... but it is obvious that you need to have backups of your pictures and data no matter where it is currently stored.... I don't think the camera storage space is why people want SD cards for their phones; they want it to store music and videos to watch when they aren't connected or on the road, or just don't want to max out their data plans streaming netflix/hulu at subpar streaming quality... If my sd card on my phone were to break, I wouldn't care, because it just has temporary information that I want to consume, nobody is or should be treating their phone's microsdhc card as a data vault for critical information.To counter the point of the shooting a wedding and losing the photos, if you had a microsd slot on the card, you could store the photos on the phone's main storage, and make a copy onto the microsd card and have redundant data in case of accidental deletion, phone failure, etc... I understand why google doesn't want us to have these options (force us into cloud storage/services), but for all the naysayers of removable batteries and removable storage; whats the down side? Why not have options? The galaxy series of phones has proven you can have these things without negatively affecting the dimensions or weight of the phone. Despite having these features, the GS4 is a much smaller and lighter device than the HTC One, I really don't get all the hate for having options, especially when having those options has virtually no down side and many benefits.Reply

But there is a downside - you add more parts that can break or become loose, and you have to compromise on the design. Perhaps that is less important to some than a removable battery or SD card, but I would argue that equally many people consider that trade-off not worth it, and many more who simply don't care either way. In my personal use case, I never bothered to upgrade it - I always just used the 8GB card that came with the phone, and I never pulled the battery unless I was changing SIMs or flashing ROMs. My current phone has 16GB, non-expandable, and I don't find myself wanting for space at all, so 32 or 64 would be more than enough - and I consider myself a bit of a "power user". So for the "hoi polloi" (love that line, BTW), I doubt it really makes much of a difference - in fact, it could be argued that having more moving/removable parts leaves more to go wrong for the average user who didn't ask for, want, need, or even know about such things.

As for the removable battery, there is a mitigation for this. You can buy a ~10,000 mAh USB battery pack for $40 or so, and it'll charge something like a One four times over while being about the same size and weight as 4 spare batteries. Plus, you don't have to turn your phone off and on and do a battery pull, and you can share it with other people if they need a top-up.Reply

You have to compromise on the design to do build any type of mobile phone, balancing features is especially important in the mobile space since we are now fitting SO MUCH technology into one device... I'm not saying I want ALL phones to have removable batteries and external storage, I am quite happy with a variety of options, and think there is definitely a place for phones like the ONE that by design need to have a non-user serviceable battery. But my point is...if a phone DOES have these features, people shouldn't turn their noses up at it just because their favorite phone happens to not have removable storage or removable battery.

And lets be honest, how many people are breaking their microsd slots and suffering from failing flash memory? (queue sarcasm)I'm hearing the argument that nobody uses these slots anyways, so how could they possibly be breaking if they aren't used? and if they did break, would it matter? or how would anyone notice?, since they arent using the slots anyway right?(end sarcasm)Its happened to me maybe once 10 years ago on a compact flash card. Ive never had an issue with any SD card in any of its mini and micro flavors. Granted, I do shop for brand name items rather than bottom of the barrel flash memory.

My bottom line is, lets not put a phone down for giving us the option of removing the battery and adding storage, since you are not required to use those features, its just an add on capability. Likewise, people should realize that phones that don't have external storage or removable batteries are still attractive to the majority of the market and their are plenty of people who have no need for those features. However, I would personally argue that there is a substantial market who will vote with their wallets in favor of a device that does have these features.Reply

But I don't think that anyone is putting down the GS4 *because* it has a removable battery and SD slot. All they are saying that it isn't really worth getting as riled up as some people on the interwebs have been. Reply

I suppose you did not read my use case scenario about having a removable battery on page 3. You should consider that not everyone is sitting at a desk or in a situation where they can tether a external battery to there phone. This is because some people have to remain mobile which makes the use of the external battery a cumbersome situation. As far as storage goes I have never had an issue with the storage bay not working on a device. I use the external sd to store backups, pictures, videos and music and I make back ups to dropbox and my computer just in case. To each his own and everyone has different use cases but I personally enjoy having a removable 32g micro sd card and removable battery. I use the internal nand for things that I feel need the extra speed and there is nothing like being able to put a new battery in and not having to worrying about your phone being low on juice ever.Reply

Removable/replaceable battery: Not everyone tosses their phone away after a year for the next shiny thing....and it looks like in terms of display, battery life, and features (do we need more than 802.11ac?) the hardware is maturing out. So, there will less of a drive to toss the phone after a year or two...especially if the US carriers move more toward the T-Mobile style of separating the phone from the service. That said, wouldn't it be useful 2 years down the road to replace the battery that no longer holds a decent charge? I loved the HTC One review. Seems to be a great phone. But, will HTC provide a service to replace the battery down the road?

No, you are not. Once I figured out that Neutron can play ALAC, I simply copy my complete music library from iTunes to ma phone (GN2). While only one thousand of songs, it takes more than 32GB. Then shooting videos and photos (which are not that important that I cannot lose them) take some more, and finally putting few 720p h.264 movies before business trip makes basically my 64GB SD card full. I do not touch it with apps though. But calling it a disadvantage seems to be quite overstatement. You may claim it is disadvantage for manufacturer, but for me it was actually decision point for why go with Sammy and not Nexus 4 (or whatever Google) or HTC.

For the replaceable battery I do not care as much (as long as it replaceable somehow), but there are some situations where removing the battery is very useful (like completely powering off the phone).Reply

Another top podcast - wish you guys did one every day or at least once a week! Love The Klugs reviews and pretty much agree with him on most of his rants (he was spot on with Facebook) but have to disagree with his thoughts on removable batteries and SD cards. The battery thing is obvious, I've extended the life of a number of devices for relatively nothing simply by replacing the battery after it has degraded. The other side of it is the disposable culture, even if a user might be done with a device it could be perfectly fine for another person, not so if the battery can't be replaced - and not so useful as landfill. As far as SD cards go I agree with him in principal but until we get reasonable amounts of space (at least 32GB and preferably 64GB) and aren't totally ripped off for additional in-built storage then the only cost effective alternative are SD cards (even if we know the NAND is poor) £100 for an extra 16GB of in-built storage or £10 for an SD card with the same amount - the choice is clear cut until that trend changes.Reply

Wait, I'm confused. You refuse to use 2.4ghz wifi? There is no speed difference for general internet use between 2.4 and 5Ghz on a regular internet connection, and range on 2.4ghz still is better than on 5Ghz. Explain why you can't use the internet because they don't have 5ghz- is it a principle sort of thing? I have a ton of devices in my house (most wired) but all the laptops except mine are 2.4ghz and I don't care that they don't have 5Ghz, even though I have a RT-N66U router.

Can one of you guys explain this to me because I'm struggling to understand. Do you just have devices that DON'T have 2.4Ghz in it?Reply

I believe it has more bandwidth, there are less devices on it and it does not have the same frequency as microwaves which is especially important for gaming (i.e. someone could want a hotpocket and get you booted from your game.)

They have talked before how a 2.4 gHz wifi signal is difficult to use in a hotel or apartment.Reply

There is typically less interference from non-wifi devices like cordless phones and microwaves on 5 gHz.Additionally most wifi is 2.4 by default so when you are in an area with many users and access points the ability to operate on 5 gHz will separate you from the others.

Not everyone receives high-end smartphones for free, or can write them off as part of their job. Most people either buy them subsidized and are stuck with them on a two-year (in Canada, THREE-year) contract, or they buy them outright and have to keep them anyway because we can't justify dropping hundreds of dollars on a phone every year. So, to respond to your flippant comment about "who keeps a phone for 2 or 3 years", MOST PEOPLE DO. I have replaced the battery in my phone, and my wife's phone, both HTC G2's from late 2010.

That's right. Phones with QWERTY keyboards. You complain and moan about not having top-notch camera hardware and think that the manufacturers should change their designs to appeal to you, while at the same time arguing that "the ship has sailed" for QWERTY keyboards. I would definitely prefer the manufacturers save a buck on the camera in order to give me a keyboard. If I want a good camera "for weddings", I'm certainly not going to be using a phone.

As for SD storage, I can't believe anyone, at this point in time, can possibly make an argument against it. Even looking at the incredible value of the Nexus 4, Google themselves still add $50 for a mere 8GB of extra NAND, and the top-end model is 16GB. The cloud? In this very podcast you laugh about being on 2G or GPRS! What good is the cloud there? Not everyone has an unlimited data plan, so what good is the cloud to them? Some people travel outside of their home country and end up roaming where data is $1/MB or more, so what good is the cloud to them? I have a 32GB microSD card that has pictures, music, and movies on it (currently using roughly 20GB), all of which are replaceable should the card fail, but it means I don't have to depend on the cloud. If the flash does fail, it is ridiculously cheap and easy to replace. I do not install applications on the card, so speed isn't an issue either.

I will only agree that the expandable storage "ship has sailed" when manufacturers actually ship phones with a minimum of 16GB, with 32GB and 64GB options that don't add $100 for each additional 16GB of NAND.Reply

You mention spend the extra $1 for 5GHz...how about spend the whopping extra $1 for SD?

Also batteries don't last more than 2 years for most masses because most people are idiots and plug their phones in overnight. It either needs to be easily accessible or have a snap removable back.Reply

I love how you call everyone who wants an mSD slot or a removable battery stupid, yet you insist on having 5GHz or .ac wifi on any device. I'm pretty sure you are in the minority there yourself. I know all the people around me who use wifi have the supplied router/wifi combo from their ISP and most of them have no 5GHz capabilities and the few that do don't have it turned on by default and the people using them won't mess with that either. The people I know who use smartphones and wifi use their home network and nothing more. So by your own logic, I should call you stupid for insisting on that. I'm pretty disappointed in those last statements you made about that, not acknowledging that some people have usage models for an mSD card and removable batteries. And trumping up the bad endurance/performance of mSD NAND is no argument against having it. It's just an argument for not using it for performance intensive/mission critical/non backed up files. Reply

Very good to hear that I am not the only one really disappointed by that kind of attitude. I'm a long time reader of Anandtech and value the analysis and opinions highly, but suggesting to throw away a perfectly usable phone just because the battery died or the storage is not enough after a year or two of usage is just arrogant.

I like to give my "old" devices away to family together with a new battery, and being able to do that definitely influences my buying decisions as a gadget enthusiast. You're right about most batteries being easily replaceable even on most new phones, but the One is a really bad precedent.

Even though I can afford buying a new phone more than once per year, resources used to manufacture our shiny tools don't generally grow on trees, and I'd gladly pay the dollar, heck, even 100, if it means making my hobby a bit more sustainable.Reply

I feel like Brian was interrupting Anand and Vivek too much. I really wanted to hear Anand's take on the S4 but every time he came close Brian interrupted. I was sort of disappointed by this podcast mostly because I didn't get to hear Anand's opinion as much as I would like to. He's a smart guy.Reply

This is my first time listening to the podcast, and I have to say, Brian, that was a great rant on the SD cards. I've now reconsidered getting a phone with a SD Card. ;-) BTW, I have a phone, which I'm still on contract, and the battery is losing power (to the point where it wouldn't hold a charge after a hour). This is after 2 1/2 years, so I had to buy a replacement battery (and it cost me $10). Anyways, great podcast guys. I'll be listening more often.Reply